Famous Yogurt

     Every single morning I am awoken by a naked Liam.  Never fail; regardless of our discussions about how he should put on underwear before coming upstairs.  We are awoken by a nude child announcing that it is "time to wake up".  On a Saturday morning (okay, and sometimes during the week too), it's our distinct pleasure to mumble "Go watch cartoons."  Of course, we hope that by the time he makes it to the couch, he's wearing underwear but sometimes you just can't be too picky.
     So with this mumbled permission, we are aware that we are opening ourselves up to the world that is Saturday morning cartoons. Ideally, Liam will end up on our local PBS station.  PBS has good cartoons (although some are admitedly quite stupid- see Super Readers "super story answers") but better yet, few commercials.  In fact, the commercials are so subtle that Liam doesn't even know what Chuckie Cheese or Rainforest Cafe are despite their sponsorships of several of his favorite shows.  However, on Saturday mornings Liam most often chooses Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon is run by a wise conglomerate of TV executives who are very aware that their audience consists of young children whose parents are still asleep and can therefore be brainwashed into submission.  They pitch this exact thing to their eager advertizers.  And I know this to be true because of a recent trip to our local warehouse/wholesalers.
     I am looking at yogurt because yogurt is a very easy, healthy snack for children.  After looking at the sugar content of several leading brands (mind you, I didn't even pick up the Trix for Kids Go-Gurts), I discovered that Yoplait had a similar sugar content to the Danimals Crush Cups.  I didn't have long to look at the Danimals Crush Cups though because as soon as I picked up the box, Liam started to shake (like he often does when he is excited) and said in his usual too-loud-for-indoors voice "Mommy, do you know what those are? Those are Danimals Crush Cups!"  Now how did he know this, I ask?  We've usually bought Organic Stoneyfield yogurt (which they didn't have any of on this particular day) and sometimes the larger store brand containers of French Vanilla yogurt.  So how did he know about Danimals Crush Cups?  And perhaps a better question for the rest of you is, "What is a Danimals Crush Cup"?
     Danimals Crush Cups come in four packs (although our wholesaler sells them in a large crate with 6 packs of four). The tops are plastic and can be broken apart from each pack of four.  The yogurt tastes like any other yogurt.  A little processed and not organic.  They're in small cups that have three accordian folds along the side.  Other than that, they're indistinct from other small yogurt containers that come in packs.  So to eat this very-special-yogurt, you have to squeeze the yogurt up from the bottom and you therefore do not need a spoon.  This is very misleading because out of the three children who I've seen eat the Danimals Crush Cup, all three of them have ended up with yogurt on their noses and one of them had yogurt on her forehead.  So the idea is that you can squish the yogurt out of the cup, into your mouth much like a toothpaste container.
     And how did Liam know about the Danimals Crush Cups?  Because of advertising, of course!  "Mommy, did you see the commercial for Danimals Crush Cups?  These are the Danimals Crush Cups!"  He was very animated and announcing this to me in all seriousness at a fevered pitch. "These are the Danimals Crush Cups they had in the commercial!"
     Just for the record, we do not have any Zhu Zhu Pets (although we have given to two kids' for their birthdays this summer).  We do not sing "I want to go to Friendly's" on the way to Friendly's.  We do not respond to advertising in a knee-jerk fashion.  Usually if we look at catalogs, we talk about all of the things we have that are similar or the same as the items in the catalog.  I do even try to avoid character logos on clothes (but it's really hard to resist trademark super hero underwear that says "I'VE GOT YOUR BACK"!  So I really had no intention of buying the Danimals Crush Cups in response to a commercial that aired when I was probably still asleep.  But, it was fairly cheap and, as I mentioned, the sugar content wasn't too high (pretty much the same as the adult Yoplait cups).  So I decided to buy the Danimals Crush Cups. And with this gesture, Liam was clearly beside himself with pleasure of actually owning these famous Danimals Crush Cups. 
     And you know, now that I think about it.  I think that was the appeal of the Danimals Crush Cups... their fame.  So the next day when Liam's best buddy came over to play and he saw those Danimals Crush Cups in our fridge and I saw him shake with excitement, it just didn't surprise me very much.  Because those were the Danimals Crush Cups from the commercial!  And I knew his parents just love to sleep in on Saturday mornings.

# of times I wrote "Danimals Crush Cups" in this post- including just now: 18